Modern vehicles contain a number of systems which require input from the driver or its occupants. Examples of such systems include climate control, navigation, audio entertainment, video entertainment, and body control. As the number of systems increase and the functionality of each system increases, there is also an increasing demand for users of the systems to provide input. For example, climate control systems have evolved from needing a user to set a desired temperature for the entire passenger compartment to needing input for a desired temperature in each zone of the vehicle, such as the driver's area, front passenger's area, and the remaining area of the vehicle extending from behind the first seating row.
Using a conventional interface method of dedicated buttons and other control devices to provide input to each system requires that an undesirably large percentage of the vehicles interior surface be covered with these devices. Also, the large number of devices may become undesirably expensive to produce and challenging to assemble quickly and accurately.